Floppy Disk Recovery

RECOVER Floppy Pro is an easy floppy disk recovery software. It recovers files from BOOT, FAT and ROOT Folder damaged floppy disks. A single run recovers all files. It recovers files from a floppy disk that windows says "is not accessible" or "is not formatted". It is a disk level data recovery software for floppy disks.

Completely Automated Floppy Disk data recovery software.

Recovers files from a floppy disk that generates 'Drive A: is not accessible' error in WINDOWS.

Recovers files from a floppy disk that generates 'The disk in drive A: is not formatted' error in WINDOWS.

Recovers files from reformatted floppy disks too.

Can be run immediately after installation.

Installation takes less than a second.

No special booting procedures.

No need to find bad sectors by yourself.

No need to look at sector contents by yourself.

No need to make any decisions by yourself regarding what to recover, what content belongs to what file, and how to recover.

Just invoke the program and just watch the displayed list of files being recovered.

No tech jargon to confront with.

No need to have a technical person recover your files. You can do it yourself.

Runs recursively to recover all files from all folder paths on floppy.

No need to remember and specify any folder path.

A single run recovers all files.

Supports (LFN) Long File Names (not on WIN NT 4).

All files that have names will be saved in their original filenames.

Files that have no names (due to damaged parent folder) will be saved with new filenames.

The disk in drive A: is not formattedDo you want to format it now Yes No

WINDOWS 98SE displays this error message when floppy disk has a bad first FAT sector in FAT copy 1 (even if Boot sector is really good and whether or not ROOT Folder has a bad first ROOT Folder sector):

The disk in drive A: is not formattedDo you want to format it now Yes No

WINDOWS 98SE displays this error message when floppy disk has bad sectors (or a single bad sector) at the very beginning of ROOT Folder:

A: is not accessibleThe system cannot read from the specified device Retry Cancel

The list below describes the various disk error conditions that can be handled by RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk v2.2, for recovering files from damaged floppy disks. The way to handle each disk error condition and what is needed from backup, etc. are also clearly and briefly explained. To what extent files can be recovered is also specified. The target is 100% data recovery.

when Boot Sector of floppy disk got bad (unreadable)

Just a command line switch makes up for the lost Boot Record in the damaged Boot Sector. 100% recovery is ensured even if the floppy disk was NEVER defragmented.

when both copies of the File Allocation Table

have been entirely damaged / erased / corrupt

100% recovery is ensured if disk defragmenter has been run on the floppy disk before the File Allocation Tables got damaged. Disk defragmenter need not have been run in the following cases:

if the floppy had been quick formatted before files were copied

if it had been reformatted before files were copied

if old files on it had been deleted before new/updated files were copied

if it was a brand new floppy disk when files were copied

have been partially damaged / erased / corrupt

100% recovery is ensured if disk defragmenter has been run on the floppy disk before the File Allocation Tables got damaged. Disk defragmenter need not have been run in the following cases:

if the floppy had been quick formatted before files were copied

if it had been reformatted before files were copied

if old files on it had been deleted before new/updated files were copied

if it was a brand new floppy disk when files were copied

In short, if you tried to keep the floppy disk in good condition either by running disk defragmenter or by quick formatting / reformatting the floppy disk before the last copying / backup operation, any kind of damage to File Allocation Table, including complete surface damage to all sectors in both FAT copies, will not lead to anything more than a special way of recovering (rather copying) files by using RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk v2.2. This is a superpower option that you have when you posses RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk v2.2. Because no one on earth can claim he / she can do without the File Allocation Table unless he / she has RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk v2.2.

when only one copy of the File Allocation Table

has been entirely damaged / erased / corrupt

100% recovery is ensured. No prior defragmentation of file system on disk is required. RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk v2.2 automatically uses the File Allocation Table (FAT) copy that was not physically damaged. In case of complete erasure or corruption (without surface damage) of one File Allocation Table (FAT) copy, user can always force the use of the good File Allocation Table (FAT) copy by specifying a switch on the command line.

has been partially damaged / erased / corrupt

100% recovery is ensured. No prior defragmentation of file system on disk is required. RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk v2.2 automatically uses the File Allocation Table (FAT) copy that was not physically damaged. In case of partial erasure or corruption (without surface damage) of one File Allocation Table (FAT) copy, user can always force the use of the good File Allocation Table (FAT) copy by specifying a switch on the command line.

when Root Folder

has been entirely damaged / erased

Raw image of Root Folder must be supplied on command line as a file. Raw image of Root Folder extracted from any backup can be used. 100% recovery is ensured.

has been partially damaged / erased

If raw image of Root Folder is not available, excepting files (actually file entries) trapped in damaged Root Folder sectors, all other files can be recovered. The OS (DOS or WINDOWS) always fails to see (even just see) file / folder entries beyond the damaged Root Folder sector. But RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk v2.2 has an easy way to deal with this problem.

when Boot Sector, File Allocation Tables, and Root Folder of floppy disk got damaged all at the same time

If we assume that all got damaged in their entirety,

a command line switch to make up for lost Boot Sector,

recent defragmentation of the file system on the floppy disk,

and a raw image of Root Folder from backup

together can ensure 100% recovery of all files. A recent defragmentation is not a requirement in the following cases:

if the floppy had been quick formatted before files were copied

if it had been reformatted before files were copied

if old files on it had been deleted before new/updated files were copied

if it was a brand new floppy disk when files were copied

If File Allocation Tables, and Root Folder got damaged only partially, and the floppy has a bad Boot Sector

a command line switch can make up for the lost Boot Sector

Recovery depends on extent of damage to Root Folder (when its raw image is not available from any backup) and extent of damage to FAT (if disk defragmenter was never run in the past in case of floppy disk with files most often edited).

If you are adamant about exploiting RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk v2.2 in such a case (that is, when damaged part of Root Folder had a number of subfolder entries), if you can use a folder finder utility and copy these subfolders to separate files, recovering anything in these subfolders' paths will turn out to be just a special copying process. All you have to do is start off with a subfolder passing it to RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk v2.2 on command line as a file and recover all the files and lower level subfolders contained in it. Repeating this process on subfolders recovered in the last run of the program, you can recover all files in that path at COPY command speed. This reduces your sector level data recovery chores to absolute minimum.

FINDING FLOPPY DISK ERRORS:

WINDOWS 95/98 ERROR MESSAGES

When first Root Folder Sector is bad, WINDOWS 98SE displayed a window with this error message:

A: is not accessible:

The system cannot read from the specified device.

When Boot Sector on floppy got damaged:, WINDOWS 98SE displayed a window with this error message:

The disk in drive A: is not formatted:

Do you want to format it now?

By running the FREEWARE version, RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk v1.4, on the floppy disk, you can find out if the Boot Sector got bad, how much of the File Allocation Table is free from physical surface damage, and whether Root Folder too got damaged. When it comes to bad sectors in data area, the FREEWARE version fails to recover file(s) having bad (physically damaged) data sector(s).

If you want to know how many Root Folder sectors got damaged, you can use DEBUG.EXE for the purpose.

The following table lists the Logical Starting Sector numbers for system and data areas for floppies that will be useful when running DEBUG.EXE. All numbers (excl. column 1) are in hex.DEBUG.EXE wants sectors numbers in hex.

We have used here INT 25H numbering scheme for sectors. Accordingly, the Boot Sector is Sector 0. For the purpose of DEBUG.EXE, the following table uses zero based Sector numbers as does INT 25H.

Disk Type

Boot Sector

FAT 1

FAT 2

Root Folder

Data

360 KB

0

1

3

5

0Ch

720 KB

0

1

4

7

0Eh

1.2 MB

0

1

8

0Fh

1Dh

1.44 MB

0

1

0Ah

13h

21h

By accessing Root Folder sectors in DEBUG.EXE, you can manually check if they are ok (readable). If DEBUG.EXE cannot read a sector, you know that sector got physically damaged.

Don't change to another floppy while working on one inside DEBUG unless you precisely know what you are doing.

TO READ 1ST SECTOR OF ROOT FOLDER:

Run the following command at DEBUG's hyphen prompt. [drive] = 0 for Drive A. [drive] = 1 for Drive B.

-L100 0 13 1

TO READ 2ND SECTOR OF ROOT FOLDER:

Run the following command at DEBUG's hyphen prompt. [drive] = 0 for Drive A. [drive] = 1 for Drive B.

-L100 0 14 1

You can increase 14 to 15,16,17,18,19,1A,1B,1C,1D,1E,1F,20 in the next Load ( -L100 here ) commands. From 13 to 20 it is 14 sectors totally. For a 1.2 MB floppy disk these 14 sectors start with F and end in 1C.

If DEBUG.EXE does not report anything, that sector is OK. When a sector is OK, you can dump its contents on screen by entering the DEBUG's DUMP command like this